Tough Love and Chemotherapy
Tough Love to addiction is what Chemotherapy is to cancer patients. Neither treatment is easy to go through for patient or their family.
Chemotherapy is tough for both family and the patient. Chemotherapy treatments, as draining as they are, unfortunately do not guarantee survival of the afflicted. The treatment is often a necessary evil.
Applying “Tough Love” to the disease of addiction does not guarantee survival either.It too becomes at some point a necessary evil. Heartbreaking for parents but often the only treatment that will have a prayer of working.
Doing nothing and avoiding either treatment normally results in a fatality.
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Another health comparison. – I am currently reading a book called America Anonymous It mentions the disease model and likens addiction to a heart disease.
Not verbatim..but -
We should no more get angry with our addicted loved ones we would if they contracted a heart disease. However we should also expect that they should follow treatment. Diet, Exercise, and Medicine should be used to treat heart disease .The treatment of choice for addiction, whether twelve step or holistic should also be followed and or mandated.
I thought the concept and comparison was perfect!
Categorised as: Journal Entries
thanks for posting this as I prepare to kick my 22 year old relapsed son out of the house this weekend…..I need constant reinforcement…I told my husband today that I vacillate between feeling like a horrible enabler and a heartless bitch. My mother told me today I was horrible for making him find a room/roommate on craigslist (he’s paying) I have no choice if I won’t cosign….and I won’t ….been down that road. Keep posting, we need it.
I like your analogy. I have told my loved one that his disease is not his responsibility, but his recovery is.
The hardest part of surrendering and letting go for me is not knowing what lies on the other side of it. Yesterday I attended my first NarAnon meeting. Hearing two mothers new to the program with children older than mine describe how for years they have enabled their children in their addiction was exactly what I needed to hear. My approach might not work either, yet today I view it as my only option.
Lisa